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DANBURY, Conn. – The back wall of Dick’s Sporting Goods, normally filled with guns of all shapes and sizes, was bare Tuesday after the retailer decided to halt all gun sales at the Danbury location and stop the sale of certain modern sporting rifles across the country.

The move to pull all guns from the Danbury location is a step in the right direction to help people affected by the Newtown shooting feel safer, said Ashley, a Danbury resident who declined to give her last name.

“It’s good in a way because I don’t feel like guns are necessary for most of the public,” Ashley said as she left the retailer. “It seems like only really paranoid people have guns and that’s dangerous.”

Other shoppers disagreed, saying guns aren’t the root of the problem.

“Guns don’t kill people,” said Nick, a New York resident who declined to give his last name. “If some guy goes out drunk driving and kills someone, you’re not going to ban cars.”

Devin, also a New York resident who declined to give her last name, agreed with Nick and said that taking guns away would not decrease gun violence. If anything, she said, it would increase violence.

“If you give everyone in the world a gun, no one would shoot each other,” she said. “You’re not going to try to shoot someone if you know they have a gun, too.”